An Unreliable Metric
by heckraising hooliganry
Summary: There's this thing she read once. Could've been in a textbook, could've been one of Karma's magazines. She can't really recall, but she does remember how it rang so true. It was something along the lines of, if you want to know who feels closest to whom in a group, watch their eyes when they laugh. [Post S1 Finale, Liam and Amy didn't bone]
1. Chapter 1

**(Author's Note) Takes place directly after the S1 finale, Burnt Toast. Everything's the same except Amy and Liam didn't fall in bed together. Cool? Cool. Slow start but will be updating regularly.**

An Unreliable Metric. [Post S1 finale, only Liam and Amy didn't bang]

_There's this thing she heard once. Read, maybe. Could have been a textbook, could have been one of Karma's Cosmo magazines. She can't really recall, but she does remember how it rang so true. It was something along the lines of, if you want to know who feels closest to whom in a group, watch their eyes when they laugh. Without fail, in a bout of laughter, the eyes will instinctively flicker towards another pair. Whoever it is, that's the person you want to share the moment with, the joy, whatever. And this is true for most people. She knows, because she's watched. She's seen. That's how you know. Usually. And whether they look back is a whole 'nother story._

The light hurt her eyes.

Not that she could see it, per se. Amy could feel it, beating on the other side of my closed lids. There was that stillness you experience after waking, those blessed few seconds before the hangover hits and - worse - your memory.

If you could call it that. Amy mentally retraced her steps from the night prior. Dancing, toasts, a glimmer of happiness for her Mother, her anger flaring at seeing Liam... then a flash that makes her stomach curl even moreso in on itself. "I love you."

"I love you, Karma." Her eyes shot open. "I love you, Karma." Coming from her own mouth, her own words. Vowels and consonants coming together to completely betray her.

And then she remembered Karma's face. Surprise followed by...was that disappointment? A fleeting moment of something, maybe? A ghost of what Amy was sure the girl felt during the failed threesome, come back to haunt her.

"I love you, too. Just not like that." Karma's voice had broken, and so had Amy. She remembered how it had been so hard to hold herself up after that, almost as if along with Karma's reluctant but pointed rejection had come a near complete inability to square her shoulders, carry herself, put one foot in front of the other.

So she recalls that much. Her heart felt like it had the jist, she just needs her brain to catch up.

She lets the feeling come back in a wave as she sat up, squinting against the sun filtering through her blinds. A headache pulsed between her temples. What had she been thinking? She allowed herself one cursory glance to her bedside table, her eyes running over a framed pictures of her and Karma, and swung her legs out of bed with a groan.

Hadn't Karma let her down easy? Hadn't she tried, at least? She had put Karma in that position, given her the other half of her heart, practically begging the girl to tug and break it.

Trying to be rational right now felt like stabbing herself in the chest.

"Champagne, never again, old friend." She mutters, tousling her own hair. She needs a shower and Advil, not necessarily in that order.

"You up?" Lauren's chipper voice cuts through the dead air in her room. Her head pokes through the door to Amy's room from their shared bathroom and she quirks an eyebrow at her clearly disheveled stepsister. "You look terrible."

"Don't need this from you right now, sis." Amy tries her best sneer and attempts to breeze past Lauren.

"Here." Lauren holds out a handful of orange pills. "Figured you'd want - nay, need these after last night."

Amy takes them without a word as Lauren shrugs, apropos of nothing except maybe, Amy suspects, to shake off her unexpected kind action. A memory floats up in her consciousness of champagne and cake, of Lauren's reveal that she knew and sympathized with Amy's plight.

"Thanks." Amy manages, popping them into her mouth and chewing. She lets herself mean for last night and for the Advil, but doesn't mention it. When she finally meets Lauren's eyes and nods, she thinks Lauren might understand, then the girl pulls an exaggerated smirk.

"Gross, heathen. Don't chew them up like a bridgetroll, there's water in the kitchen." And with that she's back across the bathroom and into her own room, and Amy almost has to laugh.

She chances a look in the mirror. Raccoon eyes, bags, slumped shoulders. The chalky pills work their way down her throat as Amy considers her options. Stay home. Face the world. Crying in bed and hating herself.

Amy wants to push everything she feels deep down inside, somehow deeper than it was before, so far it can't affect anything. Can't affect her. She wishes more than anything she didn't know what it was like to almost physically feel a lifetime of friendship roll away.

She splashes herself with water and when she puts her face in the towel to dry, it almost feels something like comfort, and Amy lets a whimper bubble up in her throat that soon turns into a cry.

Not like the her eyes weren't already wet.


	2. Chapter 2

**(Author's Note) Hey guys! Back with the second chapter, seeing as how the first was a bit short. I do tend to be in the habit of rapid fire updating, so let me know if you'll like it, that'll only encourage me. Enjoy.**

Amy kept her phone off and tried, to no avail, to swallow the lump in her throat that had formed halfway into her way to school. She had to decided to go, because she'd decided either no one could call Amy Raudenfeld a coward or no one could know Amy Raudenfeld was a coward.

She wasn't sure which one to go with yet. Nor was she sure if said lump had appeared because she kept replaying in her head with heart slaying consistency Karma's words the night before, or if it was trepidation at seeing her old best friend.

She'd shaken off Lauren's abrupt offer to walk to school with her, seeing as how their respective parents were honeymooning, and taken the long way around. Amy wasn't one for for company this morning which is why, rounding the back gate of Hester High, she almost recoiled at the sight of Karma, who'd she had purposely gone out of her way to avoid.

She swallowed several times, tried out a casual sigh, only to inwardly cringe when it came out shaky as ever. Karma waited patiently ahead of her, fidgeting with her hands and looking surprisingly as forlorn as Amy, if not moreso.

"Hey..." Karma started, while the other girl was still several feet away.

Amy cleared her throat and did her best impression of a brave face. "I, uh, didn't think I'd see you this morning." Brave face, failed.

"Didn't think or didn't want to?" Karma's voice was light.

"Uh..." Amy could not meet her friend's eyes. The pavement in front of her had suddenly never been more interesting.

"I assumed, you know, that you wouldn't." Karma said softly, taking a tentative step forward. Amy stayed still. She gestured to the gatepost. "I figured you'd sneak around back to, ah, avoid me. And, I was right." She offered a smile, Amy could tell by the sound of the words; she still hadn't looked up. "No surprise there, huh?" Karma was trying and failing for a conversational tone.

"Guess not, mind reader." Amy wanted so much to sound casual. Everything seemed out of sync this morning, under a miscroscope. She couldn't bear it, even two a dozen words in. "Karma..." Amy started then stopped, shaking her head. Karma's name had been on her lips an infinite number of times before, and recently Amy had begun to feel as if Karma's name was all she ever wanted to say again. Karma. Karma. Karma.

Today the thought made her feel sick. It was either that, or the hangover. "Or both." Amy said limply under her breath.

"Huh?" Karma took two more quick steps forward, finally in front of her, and Amy finally dared a glance. She could tell Karma had been up crying.

"Nothing. Just talking to myself. Going crazy, probably." Amy somehow pulled off a sincere eyeroll at herself and blew some hair out of her eyes.

There was a small silence.

"You, you have mad scientist eyebrow." Karma said, reaching up to smooth down the errant hairs above Amy's left eye.

Amy let her, of course. She trained her eyes on the point in Karma's chin.

"Listen," Karma seemed to struggle with her words, face almost pained, "Last night was all sorts of wackadoo and - no - not because of what you - I mean, not because of...us. Our thing." Karma squeezed her eyes shut mid babble and shook her head before opening them. "Well, sort of because of that because, whoa, how often does your best friend tell you she's in love with you?" A weak laugh blew past her lips as she wrung her hands together.

"I'm sorry." Amy said flatly. "It was a wedding, I'd had some champagne, I..." Amy pressed her lips into a thin line, knowing Karma could tell she was beginning a fabrication. "Just, jeez, sorry." She finished lamely.

"No." Karma instinctively reached out to give Amy's hand a squeeze, and when both girls immediately looked at the hands automatically clasping at each other, they pulled away like they'd both been burned. Karma stood resolute where she was but seemed at a loss for what to do with her hands. Karma was always uneasy sitting still. "Don't apologize, Amy. I should be the one apologizing."

Amy gave herself a few seconds to absorb that, shoving her hands in her pockets. She wished she could retreat into her own skin, somehow. So much for not being a coward. "Probably not."

"Well, I mean, probably. I've been so clueless, how could I not have noticed my best friend - "

Amy barked out a laugh before she could stop herself. This early in the morning, it sounded harsh. "That's what you're sorry for?"

"What?" Karma seemed a bit taken aback.

"For not noticing?" Amy sounded incredulous, bitter even to her own ears. "Wow. Well, you're in luck, totally forgiven for that one, Karma. So..." She swung a leg out to turn on her heel but Karma grabbed her shoulder.

"Hey." Karma pulled her back around to face her, looked Amy right in her eyes. Amy did her absolute best to keep her resolve but, seeing traces of red mixed with the green there, crumbled quickly, looking away. Looking anywhere. "You cried last night, Amy."

"Ugh!" Amy pulled her shoulder away and tried to ignore the hurt look on Karma's face. The double whammy of being unequivocally turned away last night and Karma being so earnest right now made her head swim. "So? You cried, I don't know, judging by your dumb face either last night or early this morning. So we both cried, so we can be even. Except for not really because you probably were shedding the majority of them for your, your boyfriend!"

"Amy!" Karma's near yell was completely drowned out by the first period bell. Students, stationary before, flooded into movement around them. "You think that?" Karma demanded, quieter.

"Doesn't matter what I think." Clearly, Amy thought.

"Amy." Karma said. "Amy, stop." She appeared on the verge of tears and Amy immediately softened. "I never tried to hurt you."

"I know." Damn that lump, appearing in full force at the most opportune of times. "Be weird if you did try." She almost whispered, then shook it off best she could. "It's okay, okay?" Though she'd meant nearly all of what she had said, Amy was already regretting her outburst.

"It's not."

"It will be."

"Amy, you just yelled at me for practically nothing. What's gonna happen with us?" Karma tried to find her eyes. Amy desperately wanted to let her, while somehow desperately wanting to fall into the ground and disappear.

"I didn't want this. I didn't want to be popular. I didn't want to fake it. I didn't want to..." A tear fell down Amy's cheek before she knew what was happening. She continued, hoarse but firm. "Fall in love with my best friend. I didn't want you to fall in love with Liam Booker..."

"I'm not - "

"And I definitely didn't want to cry before first period, so..." The noise that came out of Amy was nowhere near a laugh, "Guess we can't always get what we want, huh?"

Any other time in their lives, Karma would have taken that as an opportunity to break into the Rolling Stones classic. But, instead Karma looked crestfallen and, for one of the first times, at a loss for words. If Amy's heart hadn't already been broken, that would have done the job.

Amy wiped her face and left her friend behind, walking on unsure legs and wondering at all the varying degrees and ways a person could come undone.


	3. Chapter 3

**(Author's Note) Chapter three for you guys, just kind of getting into the swing of things and establishing the relationships/butthurts that'll be central to the story. Let me know!**

Amy had ignored Shane all first period. He had seemed, judging by the panic evident in his faces as he took in her demeanor when she ran in, late for class, worried. And seeing as how her phone was off, he had taken to tossing noted in crumpled up paper form.

When the bell rang she had accumulated a nice, obvious pile right around her feet. She had flicked away the one that landed in her hair, earning her a facepalm from the boy across the room.

"Miss Raudenfeld?" The teacher curtly nodded her head towards the mess while students filtered out of the room. She sighed and crouched down, collecting the papers.

Shane hurried across the room. "That was Mariah Carey levels of shade! What's up with you, kid?" He leaned over to help her. "I got detention relaying these to you! The old bat clearly didn't register the importance of old fashioned note passing - sorry Mrs. Williams!" He offered offhandedly while the teacher shook her head, busying herself erasing the blackboard.

"I kind of got that." Amy said, hands full as Shane pulled apart the notes one by one. "I thought you were helping."

"No way, these are art! I'm trying to find my best one - ah!" He unwrapped one of the remaining crumbles and held it up to her. It was a series of stick figures and crude drawings, among them a heart, a heart that appeared to be broken and other indecipherable sketchings. "Here."

"What is this?" Amy snatched it and barely glances at it before recrumpling it and making her way to the trashcan as Shane pulled a completely overdone sadface. "Try using words next time."

"Try turning your phone on. What's up with that? Tell me all about it after I tell you my glorious news that I have - finally - fallen into the arms of Pablo, thanks to that wedding juju, which is a thing, and also my cuteness, which we all know, is totally a thing." Shane said, looking pleased with himself. "So, hey, Amy." He jogs in front of her as they reach the hall. "I can tell when a girl's been crying, it's like, my gay kryptonite, unless it's Lauren, which, by the way, I have to talk to you about her."

Amy processed every third word, and honestly, didn't even plan on replying when Shane stopped in front of her and put on a sincere face. "Seriously, Amy. What's up? What happened last night?"

Amy let out a breath she felt she'd been holding in for fifteen hours.

"Oh no, bad sigh. What is it?" Shane asked, seeming alarmed.

"I told Karma how I felt last night." Amy said simply, shifting her backback around. She looked away from Shane's shocked face and continued her walk, going around him.

"Wait!" He caught up to her. "Stop. So?"

"So?"

"So?! What happened?!"

She leveled a near glare at him. "I'm not exactly jumping for joy, am I?"

Shane's face fell, and his tone turned sympathetic. "C'mere, Ames." He pulled her into a hug that she let happen, both because of his flair for the dramatic and because hey, a hug. Amy almost felt bad for snapping at him.

"She said she loved me, just not like that." Amy mumbled into his shoulder, and saying it out loud just made it that much worse. And real.

"Poor thing." Shane sighed, letting her go. "The hetero go to. Of course. Are you okay?" He looked at her intently. "Of course you aren't, look at you." He patted her back and spun her around to continue walking. "We're gonna figure this out, just need to put our heads together, two gay heads are better than - "

"Nothing to figure out. She made herself pretty clear. I just feel like I embarrassed myself." Amy said miserably, stomach churning. When was that going to stop? Ever? "And I feel like...I feel like I ruined our friendship for nothing. I had to open my stupid mouth and - "

"You're not stupid."

"My stupid heart and for what?" Amy demanded, shaking her head.

"You took a leap of faith." Shane said reasonably. "I'm proud of you. And Karma won't hold this against you, I promise."

She tried to let that comfort her. She tried to push away the nagging sense in the forefront of her mind saying the exact opposite. "I don't know..." Explaining all this to Shane somehow was depressing her even further. "Can we not - "

"Talk about it? Of course. Of course. Let's see, subject change..."

"Pablo, huh?" Amy offered weakly, scanning the halls, half out of fear, half out of hope, for Karma. She knew the girl had second period in the same building.

"Pablo, yes! My boy du jour, and hopefully, forevermore. Ah, I'm such a romantic." He almost swooned. Amy wanted to be happier for him, she even attempted a smile.

Before she could muster up any encouraging words, a brittle voice cut the air, "It won't last a week."

Lauren sidled up next to them on Amy's flank.

Shane smirked. "Ah, the Wicked Witch of the..." His enthusiasm seemed to falter for a minute, and both Amy and Lauren glanced at him, curious. "Whatever."

"Good one." Lauren said slowly, mocking Shane. "Scathing. I haven't been so thoroughly insulted since my sandbox days, cretin." She turned her attention to Amy impatiently as Shane looked like he wanted to respond but seemed to lose himself in his thoughts for a second.

"Ashcroft kept her head in her hands all through pre-calc and if you want a ride home after school I'm carpooling with Leila and Lisbeth. Meet me at the quad if - "

"Karma?"

"Oh, yeah, I figured you want to know she seemed devastated but also wanted to breeze past it considering your emotional state." Lauren said easily.

"How unlike you." Shane said automatically.

"He's...not wrong." Amy said, a bit confused, "but, thank you?" Her heart jerked at Karma feeling bad and having to listen to a math lecture simultaneously. Amy instantly wished she hadn't left the other girl the way she had. But what else could she have done, said?

"Karma's not the one with the broken heart." Shane pointed out, quite rightly, but he didn't know the girl like Amy did. Guilt, predictably, began to nibble at Amy's resolve.

"Mind your own business, or I'll tell Pablo what a manwhore you are. He already knows what a bigmouth life ruiner you are." Lauren countered.

"Amy is my business and - " He sighed, "Can we talk about that for a second? Why would you want to ruin our young love? I've stifled no less than three insults in the course of the last single minute. Does that count for nothing?"

"Is that your sorry excuse for an apology?" Lauren said loudly. Shane opened his mouth to retort, but Amy, lost in her own thoughts, had other designs.

"God, I should find her." Amy mumbled at the exact moment Liam Booker clapped a hand on Shane's shoulder.

"Shane! Was wondering if you've seen - " All three spun around to face him. Contempt, indifference and raised eyebrows were what he was met with, and a look at Lauren and Amy's face made him take an involuntary step back and stop midsentence.

"Karma?" Three distinct voices said in unison. Liam looked almost frightened, and Amy's blood boiled, only able to see him crawling out from under a table with Karma's kisses invisible all over his lips. Her anger flared.

"Sorry." Liam apologized despite himself.

"Wrong question." Lauren said cheerily. She turned to Amy. "Quad at three, be there or work off the sloppy joes the cafeteria's serving with a long walk home." And with that, she disappeared down the hall, eerily in time with the tardy bell ringing.

"Liam..." Shane started, darting a quick glance at Amy, who was seething silently.

"Listen, I know." He started, looking at Amy, "I know you guys were faking it, and I'm sorry I upset her last night and, and I'm sorry for crashing your Mom's - "

"What happened last night?" Amy demanded, feeling like she was missing something.

"Amy..." Shane started, beginning to feel uncomfortable with his new role as peacemaker. "Come on..."

"No." She looked Liam Booker fully in the face, letting her dislike shine through. From his cower, it was evident he could see. Somehow he knew she and Karma weren't really together and somehow he had hurt her. She wanted answers. "Tell me. I'm just some faker, right? What did you say to her, Booker?"

Shane regarded her like she had spit fire and Liam shrugged helplessly. "I...we..." He looked at Shane for help, who only shrugged.

For a second Amy wasn't sure if she was being best friend protective or girl in love with Karma angry, but by the time Liam had excused himself hurriedly for class and left with a pointed look at Shane, she was putting the pieces together.

"Did he...what, did Karma tell him we weren't really together and he...told her off?" She wondered absently. Why would Karma tell him? Was it before or after she crushed Amy's heart? "I don't understand." She sounded lost.

"It was me, Ames." Shane told her gently. "He's my best friend. He was hurt, the lying was tearing him up."

Amy took this in; the lying, his hurt, all of his feelings. "But what about my feelings?" She whimpered, tears springing into her eyes. Her heart leapt into her throat as she realized Liam and Karma were probably much more involved than she knew, and it had been kept from her by the only other friend she had in the world. "She's sad about him." Amy could barely speak. "She's sad he dumped her. He dumped her because of you." Her words fell like rocks, echoing in the now empty halls. Karma's obvious pain this morning had been one percent of relief out of a million percent pain. It hadn't even been for her.

"We're gonna be late for class...Please don't cry." Shane pleaded, looking anguished. "Please? I'm trying to be a better person, and this is such a shitty start. God, that sounded so self serving. I am so, so sorry Amy."

Her tears flowed freely, humiliatingly she couldn't hold them back, and she said between hitched breaths, "Tell Liam if he can't find her she's probably on the top of the science building, she goes there when she's freaked out - "

"Amy - "

"And she's definitely freaked out, so - "

"I didn't - "

"And I have to go, but tell everyone - "

"Please!"

"Tell everyone we're done, Karmy - " Amy pawed at her face, turning away to go somewhere, anywhere, "Karmy can be done now."


	4. Chapter 4

(Author's Note) Back with one more for the night. Hope you guys are enjoying my little story, I'm enjoying writing it. If you don't, you're always welcome to yell at me in the reviews.

After locking herself in the girls' room for two periods, sneaking an orange juice and hiding in the library for lunch, and complaining of a headache, which wasn't even a lie, and lying in the nurse's office for the remainder of the school day, Amy discreetly made her way to the quad.

She was unsurprised to see Shane making his way to her with a guilty look on his face, and equally as unsurprised at him conceding defeat when he saw both her red rimmed, puffy eyes and Lauren assuming position next to her, shooting him an icy glare.

"That boy just does not - are you crying?" Lauren grabbed Amy's chin and took a long look at her. "Again? What did Karma do, push you in front of a train this time?"

Amy shook her head soundlessly so Lauren contemplated her for a second then, thankfully, only said, "Well, let's go, then."

Lauren called shotgun so Amy was forced to ride in the back with a rather talkative Lisbeth. Amy tuned her out long enough to spare a last look at the top of the science building, which she ridiculously noted as barren. Like it mattered.

"So were you like totally crying last night at your Mom's wedding, or what?" Lisbeth chattered obliviously as Amy stared out the window. "Was Karma, like, totally your date? Ohmygosh I bet that was so - "

"Lisbeth!" Lauren paused from fiddling with the radio controls to snap at her friend. "Pull it together."

"Karma and I aren't together." Amy said stonily, not moving her eyes from the trees blurring together beyond the window. The words fell out of her, seeming like the right thing to say, and it felt absurd that they wounded her, even now.

Two gasps from Lisbeth and Leila sounded completely singular, and a hush fell over the car. Amy felt Lauren's eyes on her in the rearview but ignored it. It was the best she could do to turn away from everything external, because internally she was falling apart.

A dull roar emerged in the car as Lisbeth and Leila spoke over each other, loudly, with questions, condolensces, more questions, and a few painful 'was it because of Liam Booker?'s. Amy squeezed her eyes shut.

"Can you let me out?" She asked miserably.

"I heard Liam was asking around all day for Karma!" Leila gossiped.

"Can you stop the car?"

"I saw Karma crying in pre-calc this morning." Lisbeth said conspiratorially.

"Let me out!"

"Can you guys shut the fuck up?" Lauren finally shouted. The car screeched to a halt and and silence at around the same time a split second later. "Let her out!"

The locks popped open and Amy hopped gratefully out of the car just a block or so away from her house. Lauren cracked her window. "Feel like I should have foreseen this." She said to Amy with a shrug.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Amy finally asked, hugging her arms to herself, trying to hold herself together.

"Because we're official now, sis." Lauren said, winking. She turned up the radio loudly, then faced Amy again. "And I know what it's like to have to pretend to be something you're not. And that's never fair." Amy frowned at how vulnerable Lauren looked, only for a split second, then the mask was back up. She could do nothing but nod. "And hey." Lauren jutted her chin, old Lauren again, "There's that homewrecker now." Amy spun, and saw Karma lingering a block or so up, just around her house. "Think we'll go get some ice cream." Lauren said knowingly, quirking a smile at Amy. "Pinkberry, girls!" They sped off.

Amy stood in the street. The small silhouette of Karma was enough to make her want to run, somehow, in both directions, toward her and away. So she stood still. It was the easiest call to make.

It felt like a lifetime since the morning earlier, and a milennium since the wedding. An eternity to before. Amy stood in the street and tried to feel anything but crushed and small, and while she was practicing being a functioning human being, she could see Karma notice her.

At first neither girl motioned or moved or hollered, like they would have done in the old days. Amy willed her feet to move and found she could not. After a second, she knew Karma was inflicted with the same curious malady, recognized the signs from down the street that neither could make the first move.

Amy pulled her phone out of her pocket. Turned it on. Feeling equal parts ridiculous and hurt, she pressed 1 to speed dial Karma. She watched as the other girl put her phone to her ear. She swore she could spot Karma's quizzical look from so many yards away, but she knew it was just muscle memory.

"Amy?" Karma's voice quivered on the other end.

"Yeah." Was all Amy could allow herself to say.

"I cried all day and left after first period. I tried to break into your house but the spare key isn't under the garden gnome anymore."

"Farrah left it with Lauren. Honeymoon."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Why won't you come closer?"

"I don't think I can." Amy forced herself to tell the truth.

"Please?" Came Karma's voice, Amy could tell, just before she dissolved into tears again.

"Karma..." Amy started helplessly.

"I'll come to you." Karma said, not quite reaching the resoluteness Amy knew she was trying for. But Amy would never tell her no, and so Karma started down the block, a speck becoming more human sized by the second.

There was so much swirling between them, so much to feel, so much that could sting and break but as Karma got closer and closer Amy thought that maybe there was something that could mend and heal, too.

Karma was a few feet away now, and walking with a renewed sense of purpose, and there was so much to say and Amy's mouth opened but then closed again the second she realized the some things trump language, are greater than that, and this was one of those times.

Karma flung herself into Amy's arms. Amy held her up - no, they held each other up. Amy's head buzzed; how could the same person who dismantled her put her together again and make it feel so complete?

"You're my best friend." Karma whispered, and Amy could feel the girl's chin quiver against the crook of her neck. "You're my best friend, Amy."

"I know."

"What do we do?"

"I don't know."

"Can we fix it?"

Amy held her tighter. "I don't know."

"How do we fix it?" Karma pleaded. Amy didn't answer. "Amy?"

"You always came up with the plans, Karma." Amy tried to come across lighthearted, but they both heard her voice crack.

"I'll fix this." Karma pulled away, face streaked with tears. "Do you believe me?"

"I want to." Amy told her honestly.

"I want you to be okay. More than anything."

"I will be." Amy pulled her sleeves over her hand and wiped all of her friend's tears away. "No more crying, okay?" Because Amy desperately wanted the same for her girl.

Karma just looked at her imploringly. "I don't think I could live with myself if I ruined this."

"It wasn't you."

"It was! If only I could..." Karma's eyes fell to Amy's lips, and Amy felt her heart flutter.

"Karma?"

"Maybe we could...I could..."

"Karma." Amy's heart raced, and she took hold of her friend again, gently. "Karma, do you love Liam?"

Karma seemed snapped out of her daze, gaze traveling up to meet Amy's. "What?"

"That's why...I thought, this morning, you seemed so heartbroken, but it was for Liam, wasn't it? Because he knew you were - "

"Who told you that?"

Not exactly a denial. And in that second Amy saw two paths open up before her. One, without Karma. Torture. The other, with Karma, but now how she wanted. A different kind of torture. And try as she might, she could not see a third road. And where she was standing, she just couldn't any longer.

"It's been a long day, Karma." Amy's hand dropped to her sides.

"Amy..."

Amy reached out, cupping Karma's face gently with her hand. "No more crying, okay?"

"I'm not crying." Karma said, so obviously starting to cry again that Amy almost laughed. This was the girl Amy had spent her entire life opening doors for, always staying one step ahead of, trying to help her move through life as effortlessly as possible.

That wasn't going to end here. Because of Liam Booker, and misunderstandings, and some tears and one girl's broken heart. Okay, maybe two girl's. Not in the same way, though. One and a half broken hearts.

This was a hiccup.

If she had never kissed Karma maybe none of this would have happened like it did. But Amy knew she would never take it back.

"I wouldn't, you know." Amy told her, leaning forward to press a kiss into her oldest friend's forehead.

"What?" Karma asked, eyes closed, taking it in. Her hands clutched at Amy's sides. Anyone looking at them would not question for a second that they were together, that they seemed to fit like puzzle pieces. Puzzle pieces that didn't fit together but were forced together, so overlapping and locked together that they couldn't come apart, even by the toughest hand.

"Take it back. Any of it." Amy told her gently, letting her go.

Karma's wet eyes shone as she beamed at Amy. She understood.

"We can do this, right?" Amy asked, brushing some hair out of Karma's eyes, finally starting to believe it herself. The alternative, they both knew, was too heartbreaking to imagine.

"You kiddin' me?" Karmed sniffed. "This is us we're talking about."

Amy almost laughed. She laced her arm through Karma's, half of her wondering how the girl did this to her, made her want to jump with both feet into something no one in their right mind would suggest. The other half of her knew, of course, that Karma came before anyone else, even herself, usually, and that Karma felt the same about her.

Was just usually Amy who got to her conclusion first.

"Speaking of us, Karma chameleon," Amy said, as they both turned towards the Raudenfeld home, "We have some news to break to Hester High."


End file.
